


i guess this is growing up

by Know_Your_Paradoxes



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Best Friends, Bisexual Charlie Kelly, Bisexual Dennis Reynolds, Childhood Friends, Childhood Sweethearts, Coming Out, Dennis and Dee are Good Allies, First Kiss, Growing Up, High School, Inspired by Music, Lesbian Dee Reynolds, M/M, Mutual Pining, Trans Charlie Kelly, bonnie's only mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:29:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23493232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Know_Your_Paradoxes/pseuds/Know_Your_Paradoxes
Summary: Charlie thanks the universe for Mac McDonald every fucking day.
Relationships: Charlie Kelly/Mac McDonald
Comments: 11
Kudos: 86





	i guess this is growing up

**Author's Note:**

> *pats Charlie Kelly on the forehead* this bad boy can fit so much self-projection in it
> 
> title taken from "dammit" by blink-182

Charlie Kelly thanked the universe every day for the fact that his mom was too out of it to remember that he was born a girl.

Bonnie had never been particularly good with memory, so when Charlie started wearing some of the boy clothes that he found from the Lost and Found bin at school, she had really thought nothing of it. Convincing her that his name wasn't Francine was a bit more difficult, though. The great thing about it was that his mom didn't really have any memory of giving birth, much less to a female baby. Any time that he found himself in a situation where his mom was paying attention to him, and his identity was in question, he always made sure to point out how he was named after his grandfather, and luckily for him, Bonnie didn't really care to look back and remember that she named him anything differently.

He was still insecure, sure, because his voice was higher than most of the other boys' voices were, and his clothes never fit right while the other boys had clothes that were their right size. His teachers weren't accommodating either, they kept calling him by the wrong name. If he could get away with murder at home, he couldn't even get away with a single misstep at school. However, the kids were usually pretty cool and accepting.

One kid, his best friend (really, his ONLY friend) Ronnie, was really good at calling him Charlie. They never once talked about how Charlie had different parts than he did, or how Charlie's hair was a rushed chop job that looked like he had cut it himself. (Because he had, and he continued to do that until he was in his mid-20's or so. It turns out that after a while, you get better at that sort of thing.)

Ronnie let Charlie borrow his clothes, and Charlie gave Ronnie whatever clothes he still had around that he'd taken from the Lost and Found. After a couple of months, Ronnie decided that he didn't need Charlie to give him any clothes in return.

Elementary school had been really good to Charlie, he had decided. After all, it had brought him his best friend, and there wasn't much else that it could do that would be able to top that.

* * *

Middle school was notably WAY harder than elementary school had been.

First of all, the other kids started noticing that Charlie was growing boobs, and that his voice was getting a bit higher. Then, his period came, and he had to deal with that shit all alone, because his mom had no fucking clue that he had a vagina. He couldn't really talk to any of the girls, because they all thought that he was a lesbian, and he couldn't talk to the guys because they didn't understand, and they thought he was a word that he didn't understand the meaning of and didn't want to repeat in fear of actually becoming it.

Ronnie was still around, and that was the only solace that he had. Despite Ronnie not knowing exactly the struggles that Charlie was going through, he still listened to him ramble on endlessly about how shitty the universe was for doing this to him. ("I mean, Jesus fucking Christ, dude." "Don't say his name in vain." "Sorry. But like, seriously? Why the fuck does this hurt so bad? Like, it's enough to have BLOOD coming OUT of my body, but to add on the stupid fucking CRAMPING PAIN? I'm gonna jump off of the roof of the school building tomorrow, dude. I swear." "No, you're not. Here, take a puff.")

He finally found a word for what he was -- he was transgender. (Other sites argued transsexual, but it wasn't as easy to say and it sounded way more mean-spirited.) When he found it, he almost cried in the public library, right into Ronnie's shoulder.

After that, it was a couple months before Ronnie also told him something personal. Charlie hadn't been expecting any confession from Ronnie in return, but he was grateful that Ronnie trusted him the same way that he trusted Ronnie.

They had been hanging out in Charlie's room, playing catch with a foam football he'd gotten for Christmas one year when he was younger from one of the many times Santa had visited him. (The weird thing was that Santa kept switching between calling him Charlie and calling him by the name he'd been given.) The two of them were never particularly sporty, but Ronnie had a decent arm, and Charlie was pretty good at catching anything that was thrown at him. (He'd learned really quickly after the bullies started getting more and more creative with how they'd harass him.)

Ronnie usually never hesitated when throwing the ball back to Charlie. It was second nature to just toss it back as soon as you got it. Ronnie naturally had quicker reflexes than Charlie did, so Charlie had conditioned himself to be on the ready.

There was a lull of about a second between Ronnie catching the ball and then throwing it back, and when Charlie looked at him, he could tell that he was hoping that he wouldn't notice the pause.

"Are you okay, man?" he asked. (He was still getting used to the new, coarser tone to his voice from the weed that Ronnie had found and started selling underneath the bleachers at football games. It made him sound manlier, more natural, and he liked it a lot.)

The other boy took a deep breath, sat the football next to him in the pile of Charlie's hand-me-down clothes that he was sitting in (that had previously been Ronnie's), and said, quietly, "You can't tell anybody about this, you understand?"

"Of course, of course. Why would I do that to my best friend?"

A relieved grin spread across Ronnie's face. "I know, I'm just... this is really hard to say. Um... you're a guy, and so am I, right? And you like girls?"

Charlie nodded. "Yeah, man. Girls are really hot. When they're not calling me names and shit. Even then, they can still be pretty fuckin' gorgeous though. Why're you asking?" He had a hunch as to why Ronnie would be asking that question in particular, but he didn't want to confront him with it and make him anxious.

"Um, I don't? Really? Like girls? At least, not that way. You know?" He stumbled for words for a couple of seconds before taking a second, rubbing his eyes and face, and then inhaling a short breath. "Do you know what I mean?"

"I do. And that's totally fine, dude. Why did you think that I'd go telling people? I'd be a really shitty friend if I did that shit. Just because you like dudes, that doesn't mean that you're any different than you were before. You liked dudes then and you like them now. The only thing that's different is that now I know about it."

Ronnie let out that tiny sigh, and his face was flushed and bright with relief and happiness. "You mean it? You're really okay with it?"

"Why wouldn't I be? I've told you some real personal shit before, and you were so fucking cool about it. You're my best friend, man."

His smile was bright enough to light up the whole city of Philadelphia.

There was an awkward moment for a second before Ronnie shifted out of his seat to sit down next to Charlie and hug him. This was the first time that the two had hugged one another for a while. Since elementary school at least, maybe for the second time ever, but Charlie was too high from the mix of the weed that Ronnie had saved from his supply and some of the glue that he'd started huffing a year or so ago after finding out how it took the pain of being fucked with by other people so much.

Ronnie was really fucking good at this hugging thing. He was scrawny, but he held on pretty tightly, and he was warm. He smelled like weed and sweat and really strong, shitty body spray, and Charlie was so glad that this was his best friend. They were just a couple of two peas in a pod, when it came down to it. Ronnie had always been there for him, and he was fucking ecstatic that he could be there for his best friend in turn.

With a couple of pats on the back, the hug ended, and the smile on the taller boy's face was still beaming, if not more so. "Now uh, I have another thing to ask you, man."

"Sure. What's up?"

Ronnie's cheeks went red as he asked, in a hushed tone, "Have you ever kissed anybody before? Like, a girl, or a guy, or what?"

Charlie blinked a couple of times. He had not expected that question right after that hug. "Uh, no. I haven't. I'd be down to kiss a girl or a guy, but I've never... really thought about it, or had the chance to. If you remember, I'm kind of on the shitlist around here."

They laughed at Charlie's self-deprecating joke for a moment, and Ronnie broke the silence that came after. "Good. Uh, because I haven't either. I didn't want to be alone in that. But uh, promise me that when you get your first kiss, you'll tell me about it."

Charlie nodded, extending a hand to Ronnie for a handshake. "Only if you do the same for me."

Ronnie gave handshakes the same way that he gave hugs -- fucking perfectly.

* * *

High school had shown Charlie some major improvements in life. Now he had another group of friends in the Reynolds twins -- Dennis and Dee, who were fucking LOADED, and who had actually gone out of their way to steal money to buy Charlie some chest binding supplies and some hormones. It had turned out that the two of them were also big queers. Dee had started hitting on Charlie before they had properly met, and had assumed he was a butch lesbian before he corrected her, and Dennis continued to subtly flirt with Charlie whenever he had the chance, stealing winks and giving him once-overs every now and again.

Ronnie (who had now grown sick of the name Ronnie the Rat being tossed his way, so he had changed it to Mac recently) had regressed. He was still closeted as far as his attraction to men went, but he was at least out to Charlie, and Charlie had known from the second that Mac had laid eyes on Dennis that he had a major infatuation with him.

The two had still never gotten their first kisses, although one night when Charlie got drunk with Dee and Dennis, Dennis came eerily close to trying to kiss him, before Dee had yelled "GODDAMMIT" and led everyone to discover that someone had egged their dad's car.

Dennis and Dee ended up getting mono the same week (which Charlie later found out came from the same girl -- Maureen Ponderosa, who had been Dennis's on-off girlfriend for a few months, and had been in a fling with Dee any time the switch was off), so the night of the homecoming game, Charlie and Mac were sitting under the bleachers, alone, sniffing some of Charlie's glue and smoking the weed that hadn't been sold to the opposing football team before the game.

Charlie couldn't really see anything, but he heard a lot of cheering around him, so he figured that someone must be winning, which is how football works. (He was never good at thinking under pressure, nor was he ever good at logical thought in general. He just liked stroking his wiry chin-hairs that had started to spawn after two months on testosterone.)

He looked to Mac and chided, "Damn, is this finally gonna be the year that our football team is actually not a total shitstorm?"

Mac shrugged, taking another hit. "I wouldn't count on it. At this point, I think that everybody on our side just starts cheering for the other team because they don't want to be associated with the losers."

"That's probably fair." Charlie thought about how he and Mac were the losers, and how the world had stopped cheering for them and started going for the other team. He thought about how he should probably fit with the crowd, but he really did want to see those stupid meathead jocks win a game for once in his life. He thought about how he was so fucking grateful for the times that Mac stuck by him, even if he became a loser by association.

Mac seemed to realize how deep he was in thought, and he looked to the shorter man and asked, "What if we were the cheesiest douchebags alive right now and just started yelling for our team to win?"

"That's fucking terrible. Can we PLEASE do that?"

There was no need to ask twice, as Mac started yelling. "COME ON BOYS! YOU CAN DO THIS! HOMECOMING BABY, DEFEND THE TERRITORY!"

Charlie yelled similar phrases in turn, and there were tiny whispers above them that were barely intelligible, asking "whose voices are those?" and "why are they cheering for these dipshits?"

After a minute or so of nonstop cheering, even while the Pep Band played during a time-out, they couldn't keep their act together anymore, and the two fell apart, laughing and taking turns sharing the blunt that was now almost completely burnt out. Charlie hit the ground with a soft thud, and his back let out a jolt of pain in response, but it was worth it to see Mac do the same, laughing so hard that he couldn't keep himself upright anymore.

Their laughing and shaking subsided, and they were just staring at the bottoms of the bleachers. It took a second before Charlie even realized that his hand was on top of Mac's, and Mac didn't seem to notice at all.

"Hey, uh. You know what would make this even cheesier, man?" Charlie asked, his mind and body working on autopilot.

Mac turned his head to face Charlie, and in the dim Friday night lights, with the way that Mac's hair was sticking out in odd angles, and the shaky breaths he was taking from recovering from their laughing fit, he was gorgeous.

"What?"

That question in response was all that Charlie needed before he turned to his side and planted his lips to Mac's.

Yet again, Mac was perfect in this regard, too. His kiss was smoky and his lips were soft, and Charlie could get addicted to this sort of thing. He had never once thought that he would be kissing Ronnie McDonald until now, but now that it was happening, he was mentally kicking his own ass for not doing it sooner. His hands placed themselves around his neck, thumbs grazing his jaw and feeling the stubble and scabs from a poor shave job. Mac's hands rested on Charlie's hips, and they were so warm that for a second, he didn't register that Mac's hands were above his shirt.

Mac broke for air long before Charlie wanted him to, and his pulse pumped intensely underneath his fingertips. His brown eyes were wide in surprise.

"Was. Was that your first kiss?" he asked.

Charlie nodded, letting out a breath that he wasn't aware that he was holding.

"Really? Because that was like, really good. Are you sure?"

The two laughed again, and Charlie figured that he could give Mac the answer that he wanted without any words.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @queercharliekelly for more nonsense


End file.
